


Anniversary

by jayeinacross



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Gen, Jaegercon Bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-06
Updated: 2013-08-06
Packaged: 2017-12-22 15:02:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/914625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jayeinacross/pseuds/jayeinacross
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Newt's teaching his undergrad class when it happens, and it's like any other number of disasters that the world's lived through, except it's really not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anniversary

**Author's Note:**

> for the [Jaegercon Bingo square](http://jaegercon.tumblr.com/post/57225250646/): "K-Day".

Newt's teaching his undergrad class when it happens, and it's like any other number of disasters that the world's lived through, except it's really not.

One of the other lecturers bursts into the room, babbles at Newt to turn on the TV, and when he does, every news channel is playing a variation of the same story, one that nobody would believe was really happening if they couldn't see it right in front of them. The panic and terror is real, and though the destruction is only in California, the panic spreads like wildfire across the country, even to Massachusetts. Soon enough, the entire country is frozen in shock, and then the rest of the world is, too.

Hurricanes and earthquakes and bombs and shootings; they've been through all of those, but this is something entirely new, and Newt is horrified and fascinated. It takes three days and countless lives before the thing is dead, and for some reason, it's written off as an anomaly -- a tragedy, a horrific disaster, but a one-off thing.

Newt disagrees, and he'll tell anyone who will listen, but not many will, because everyone thinks his curiosity about the creature is unseemly, distasteful. When it happens again six months later in Manila, it doesn't give Newt any kind of satisfaction to know that he was right, only makes him burn even more with the need to know what's happening. When something catches Newt's interest, he latches on, devours knowledge until he's satisfied, which is rarely -- that's how he got to where he is now, and that's how he'll get further.

The Jaeger Program is announced, and Newt knows that it's where he needs to be. Sometimes it's hard for Newt to get people to take him seriously at first, but there's no denying that he's a brilliant scientist, and finally, he gets the chance to study the Kaiju.

On the fourth anniversary of K-Day, Newt meets Hermann Gottlieb. They're forced to endure each other's company while they're both working temporarily at the same Shatterdome, and neither of them are particularly happy about it, but at least it's not for long. Gottlieb is stuffy and pretentious, and Newt can't stand him, but Newt's doing the work he loves, and he wouldn't look back.

People stare at his tattoos in disgust and whisper behind his back, call him a Kaiju sympathiser. Once, one of the Rangers walks by the lab and shouts it at him through the windows, but he's learned to ignore all that. In the end, it doesn't really matter what anyone else thinks, because he knows that they're wrong. Whenever it finally happens, Newt's going to be celebrating the day that they manage to close the Breach, not mourning it like he does K-Day with the rest of the world.

"Ridiculous," Gottlieb huffs, when the Ranger's gone, and Newt looks over at him in surprise. "The Rangers forget that they're not the only ones who are involved in all of this."

Even if he is covered in chalk dust all the time, Newt supposes that Gottlieb isn't too bad, just as long as he never has to share a lab with him again.


End file.
